INTERPRET NTA User Guide
Introduction
Non-targeted analysis (NTA) methods utilize high-resolution mass spectrometry (HRMS) to measure chemicals without requiring pre-existing knowledge of their presence. These methods are not reliant on analytical standards or reference data (e.g., standardized methods, reference spectra) to perform measurements and instead use generalized approaches to measure thousands of chemicals across a vast chemical space. The use of NTA by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Research and Development (ORD) is summarized in the video below. Within ORD, NTA methods are employed to identify contaminants in drinking water,1,2 environmental media,3-8 consumer products,9,10and biological samples11-13 among other applications.